Sŏ
surname · Latin script
Sŏ is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 56th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Middle English so, swo, zuo, swa, swe, from Old English swā, swǣ, swē (“so, as, the same, such, that”), from Proto-West Germanic *swā, from Proto-Germanic *swa, *swē (“so”), from Proto-Indo-Europ.
- USUnited States1 in 45K(measured from records)
- BRBrazil1 in 52K
- FIFinland1 in 107K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sŏ itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 194 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.9K (inferred from the name graph)
53,856 named 소, 2015
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
North Korea, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled So in US United States, NL Netherlands, KP North Korea and 소 in KR South Korea.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- Middle Englishso(measured from records)
- Old Englishswā“so“so, as, the same, such, that”(measured from records)
- Proto-West Germanic*swā(measured from records)
- Proto-Germanic*swa“so”(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*swēreflexive pronomial stem(measured from records)
From Middle English so, swo, zuo, swa, swe, from Old English swā, swǣ, swē (“so, as, the same, such, that”), from Proto-West Germanic *swā, from Proto-Germanic *swa, *swē (“so”), from Proto-Indo-European *swē, *swō (reflexive pronomial stem). Cognate with Scots sae (“so”), West Frisian sa (“so”), Low German so (“so”), Dutch zo (“so”), German so (“so”), Danish så (“so”), Norwegian Nynorsk so, Swedish så ("so, such that"), Old Latin suad (“so”), Albanian sa (“how much, so, as”), Ancient Greek ὡς (hōs, “as”), Urdu سو (sō, “hence”).
Cited for this meaning 7
- 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples)
- Digital Pāḷi Dictionary
- A Frequency Dictionary of German
- Wiktionary
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 28 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Sŏ counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #56 | 53,856as 소 | 1 in 962 | 825K | 소 | 156 |
| US United States | — | 7,456 | 1 in 45K | 7.8K | So | 194 |
| KP North Korea | — | ≈5,400 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | So | 23 |
| BR Brazil | — | 4,069 | 1 in 52K | 4.1K | — | 1 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 114 | 1 in 152K | 114 | So | 10 |
| FI Finland | — | 52 | 1 in 107K | 52 | — | 2 |
53,856 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Philip Jaisohnb. 1864USnot in their usual nameKorean-American independence activist and journalist (1864–1951)
- Seo Jung-wonb. 1970KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean footballer
- Seo Ji-hyeb. 1984KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress, born 1984
- Seo Hyun-jinb. 1985KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer and actress
- Seo Woob. 1985KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress
- Seo In-gukb. 1987KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actor and singer
- Seo Yea-jib. 1990KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actress
- Seohyunb. 1991KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer and actress
- Seo Kang-junb. 1993KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean actor and singer
- Seo Soo-jinb. 1998KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer (born 1998)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence
(measured from records)No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Sŏ mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English so, swo, zuo, swa, swe, from Old English swā, swǣ, swē (“so, as, the same, such, that”), from Proto-West Germanic *swā, from Proto-Germanic *swa, *swē (“so”), from Proto-Indo-Europ… Recorded by 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples) and Digital Pāḷi Dictionary and 5 other sources.
- In which country does Sŏ have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 54 thousand people named 소, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Sŏ?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,456 people named Sŏ in 2010, about 1 in 45 thousand residents.
- How common is Sŏ compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Sŏ is the 56th most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sŏ?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/s%C5%8FThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Sŏ” — the 56th most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.